As an Artist, You’ll Be Asked to Give Up (Again and Again)

Photo taken from today’s new video for “Fight for You”

Dear friends,

12 years ago, I was the last musician to ever release an album on the old EMI.
It was the label of my dreams — and it took me 10 years to get signed by a major.

Three days after I saw my album in a shop for the first time, Universal bought EMI.

Shockingly, they kept Radiohead and The Beatles.
And I got dropped!

The next day.

And yet…

Tomorrow, my new song comes out.
It’s called “Fight for You” —
and it’s about fighting like hell for your creative life.

No one gets to tell you when you’re done.
And you’ve no idea the fucking power inside you —
to keep going when heaven and the fates are against you.

We come across many thresholds in life.
But before the journey begins, you don’t get to know:
Your ending is just the beginning.

Everything that is my story started that day.
And tomorrow, it continues.

Independent.
Ragtag.
Free.

And so — a reminder:
Keep fighting like hell for your dreams.

If you have one not yet started, remember:
While there is blood in your veins, there is time.

Do it reckless.
Do it rough.
Do it with zero support.
Do it laughed at.
Do it insecure.
Do it in success.
Do it in failure.
Do it realising you’ve transcended either.

But please:
Rough it out & get going!

Write the smallest thing you possibly can.
Let it haunt you a few days if it must.
But then — nudge it forward…
Set a spark to it…
Give it the chance to be.

And yes, as today’s video suggests —

Sometimes you’ll have to do it in a red jumpsuit,
googly-eyed goggles,
and with a pair of superheroes standing by your side!

Here is the video for “Fight for You.”

If you’d like to support the project, please drop a comment — I’d love to hear from you!

Most of all, enjoy.

With love,
Jim

Click on the picture to watch:

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FOR PAID SUBSCRIBERS:

Today marks a year and a half since I decided to stop wrestling with writer’s block — and start fighting for my musical life.

I’m celebrating with the release of the 6th song from the project: Fight for You.

Three thoughts hit me at once:

• How is it halfway already?!

• Am I in this project… or just keeping up with it?

• Should I be aiming higher?

This week’s Substack is a reflection on why joy — not ambition — is leading me, the madcap zaniness of keeping up with a self-invented mission, and why “should” is the one word I’m learning to leave behind.

If you’re wrestling with doubt, ambition, or feeling like you’ve fallen behind — this one’s for you.

p.s I have been slack on my paid posts recently — today I get back on course. I am on a mission to give you all the best of me. For anyone considering upgrading: the money from Substack is going into the vinyl pressing of the record — step by step!

1/ Regarding the Question of Giving Up

It started in January 2024, sitting in Mahalla, confronting the question: Is my musical life over?

God, I felt tormented. What I didn’t realise at the time was why.

Because as an artist, you will be asked many times to give up.

Yes, it’s a rite of passage — even writers and artists with huge success face it.

But what I’ve realised is that you have to dissect the question:

Is it the world saying it to you? Or is it yourself?

Let’s say it plainly: most artists spend years and years developing their craft, feeling something burning out of them like spitfire, knowing they’re getting closer and closer to what they feel, inkle, and have staked their lives on discovering —

Only to be met with… the crickets of the internet.

At this point, it’s just you and the void.

As I sat there, peering in, I knew I’d come so far. I knew I had the evidence of a life lived.

But this was my own personal reckoning — at this stage, in this moment.

Because an artistic life is not linear.

Forgive me, but it’s a fucking roller coaster.

What I realised, sitting there in that reckoning, was this:

That I had to do it — for me.

It was okay if the prudent thing to do was to give up. I even knew I’d be okay — that it would be giving in.

Sometimes, when you reach a fork in the road, you know it’s okay… to just let go and walk forward with a blindfold.

I had already walked through this threshold many times in my life. What I never knew is that the gateway always changes face. Yes, you’ve gained knowledge from your earlier voyages — but the demon you meet there has powered up too.

I realise it now:

Your power, artistically, is commensurate with meeting that demon. That’s where the exchange takes place.

What you most feared becomes exactly where your strength begins.

But my god, you have to walk through that gateway first.

As Joseph Campbell wrote, “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”